If you are busy asking ‘What the heck is Vichyssoise?’ it is actually a pompous way to say potato soup.
Traditionally Vichyssoise is made with potatoes, leeks and chicken stock. Usually served cold it can also be eaten hot. If any of you have seen Batman Returns, there is a scene where the Butler brings in a bowl of Vichyssoise. Upon Bruce Wayne’s complaints about it being cold, Alfred patiently explains that “it is supposed to be cold sir.”
There is some uncertainty as to whether vichyssoise originally comes from America or France. One of the more recent and trackable variations come from a famous chef who used to cook for the Ritz. He apparently rendered it into the menu of the Ritz Hotel from a memory of eating it as a child at his Mother’s and Grandmother’s tables.
So now that we have been suitably impressed with the antiquity of good old potato soup. Let me explain myself. Because I have some explaining to do. In my variation of vegan style vichyssoise, I discarded the leeks… Chucked out the stock completely, and replaced those ‘elements’ with cucumber!
But hold on, I am not a loony: ). I did some RESEARCH and it turns out that other people more qualified than I have done the same. I am not surprised, because this variation of vichyssoise is damn good.
The day I stumbled upon my rebel vichyssoise recipe, it was scorching hot and I was cleaning out the fridge. To my dismay I found that somehow between my mother’s garden and the store, I had accumulated about 4 large cucumbers. Now if my companion had been a raw veg crunching girl determined to lose 20 pounds in two weeks, there would have been no problem in consuming them. But I had a troll on my hands to feed. And personally, as much as I like a good bit of cucumber, I could not see myself eating all four.
The solution? This recipe. Or the original prototype. We ate it cold, seeing as there was no way we could face hot soup. Only later did I find out that was the way we were supposed to be having our vichyssoise hehe. Guidance comes in the strangest forms.
Before we get into the recipe let me run you through the steps quickly, just so you can see how quick and easy this soup is!
Firstly, chop up a few potatoes. If you have some leftover potatoes from another meal you can use those, but if not you will need to simmer up a couple. I stick a bay leaf into the water with the potatoes while they are cooking.
Once the potatoes are cooked, remove the bay leaf, chop up a decent sized cucumber. Put it into the pot with some olive oil or some coconut oil, salt, pepper, lemon juice and herbs.
Whizz this up with a stick blender (gosh, I should become an affiliate for some high end blender stick company the amount of times I mention mine) or food processor. And Voilà! Vichyssoise a la concombre. (That means cucumber in french according to Google).
Update: I did it! Rebel’s Kitchen now has affiliate links to Amazon! : D If you click on the highlights, it will take you to Amazon’s stick blender page. Enjoy!
Vegan Vichyssoise
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Ingredients
- 3 medium to large potatoes
- 1 large cucumber or 2 smaller ones
- 1/3 cup olive oil or coconut oil or avocado oil (you can also use coconut milk if you want the white creamy look)
- Sprig fresh basil
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 teaspoon dried coriander
- Salt
- Pepper
- Lemon juice from 1 lemon, or 2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
Instructions
- Chop up the potatoes. I do them pretty fine because then they cook extra fast.
- Place in a pot with 1 cup of water and set to simmer.
- While you wait for the potatoes you can dice up the cucumber. Cucumber blends very easily, so you can cut big rounds.
- Once the potatoes are done turn off the heat and remove the bay leaf.
- Add in all the other ingredients; cucumber rounds, garlic, herbs, olive oil or coconut cream, lemon juice and salt and pepper. Just reserve a couple basil leaves for garnish.
- Blend the whole lot together. If you wish to have the basil bits visible in the soup, add them into the blending at the end.
- Chill, garnish and serve! Remember you can also eat this soup hot, it does not HAVE to be cold.
Notes
If you are on a low carb kick, then you can adjust the potato to cucumber ratio. Once when I was making this soup for just myself, no Troll, I did mostly cucumber and it was great! If your eating partner is not interested in a 70% cucumber soup you can do two different batches, one potato heavy and one cucumber heavy.
